What's Taken For Granted
by Windjammers
Summary: A Dread Youth working for the Resistance has to be a learning experience for everyone involved. How difficult is it for soldiers from different armies to learn to work together?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The following is a work of fan fiction based on the television series, _Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future_. It is not intended to infringe on the copyrights of Landmark Entertainment Corporation or anyone else who may have legal rights to the characters and settings. I do not own the characters. However, I am putting them into an adventure since the show was cancelled and the writers/producers/directors/actors can't put them into any new adventures.

_**Author's Notes:**_ _I was attacked by another plot bunny that demanded I let it turn into a full sized rabbit._ _I wondered – how would other Resistance teams deal with a former Dread Youth? Since we met Cadet Erin before, I thought she could be the one whose perspective we could explore._ _This story is post season one, but there is no Ranger or Andy Jackson lurking in the background. Jon and Jennifer are a couple – still, that's more of a sub-sub-subplot to the story rather than the story itself. _

* * *

**What's Taken For Granted**

_Database Journal, 48-10 Mark 28.__Captain Power reporting. _

_Paul Murphy, the leader of a resistance cell currently operating in Sector 9, has contacted us and requested a meeting. Although Murphy's team has always been formidable, they've had a great deal more success fighting Dread in the last few months than any of the other Resistance cells. We're hoping we can find out what new tactics or techniques they're using so they can be adapted to other Resistance groups._

* * *

**Sector 9**

Before the Metal Wars, Sector 9 was known as Cincinnati. Where tall skyscrapers once towered over the streets, now, the scattered ruins bore little resemblance to the once great city. Jagged pieces of metal and scaffolding littered the skyline, broken concrete and shattered glass lay in piles on the ground. Roads looked as if a giant jackhammer had demolished the asphalt. The remaining buildings were fragile and easily destroyed. Even the marauders stayed away since there was nothing left there to salvage. The war completely devastated it, and time was finishing the job.

Every time the Power Team flew to Sector 9, they saw more damage, more deterioration. The view from the front screen of the jumpship showed the uneven horizon looking like a broken serrated knife, much more so than it did the last time they were there. Within their lifetimes, there would be nothing left.

Yet despite the view out of the screen, Jonathan Power took great pleasure of the view in front of the screen as he watched Jennifer expertly fly the jumpship. Her movements were fluid as her hands manipulated the controls of the ship, most of the time without even looking at them. Jon didn't know if it was skill or instinct, but Jennifer could maneuver the jumpship in ways it wasn't designed to do. Even Hawk couldn't get the jumpship to perform that well. It wasn't that Hawk didn't do a great job as pilot -- he did -- but flying came naturally to Jennifer. The jumpship responded to her better than anyone else. If it had been sentient, Jon would have sworn that the ship could read her mind and predict what she wanted to do. He was certain it had missed her while she was gone.

Every now and then, he'd see her fiddle with the seat's height adjustments. When she was gone, they all took turns flying the jumpship, and every single one of them would change the seat height. There had always been one cardinal rule about the jumpship that none of them had dared break as long as Jennifer was the pilot – no one was allowed to change the seat. With her gone…

_Don't think about that_, Jon reminded himself. They were on a mission. He needed to keep his focus and not let the bad memories come forward.

Jon walked up behind Jennifer as she carefully piloted the jumpship through the ruins to the rendezvous point. Looking out on the desolation, Jon suddenly felt a bit uneasy, but he didn't know why. It was the feeling that something bad was going to happen even if he didn't know what. "What do you think?" he asked her.

"My gut's telling me that something's not right," she answered keeping a wary eye out on the horizon. "Murphy wouldn't lead us into a trap though."

Behind them, Tank kept an eye on the scanners. Everything was clear above ground, and there were three life signs at the rendezvous point. All was quiet, just as they were told, but even he was feeling like something was off. "Three at the site, Captain," he said.

"Three?" Hawk asked. "Murphy has a five-person team."

"Maybe they didn't wish to risk all of them for a meeting," Scout suggested.

Jon sat back down as Jennifer started the descent. "We'll find out soon enough."

* * *

Lord Dread sat on his _throne_, listening to the reports as they came in.

"Squad Four has digitized four organics hiding in Sector One…"  
"Squad Nine has completed reconnaissance on the northern region of Sector Ten…"

The reports droned on. Squad this and squad that, sector here and sector there – biomech troopers were not biodreads like Soaron and Blastarr. They were productive but not efficient. He required biodreads to accomplish his goals. Now, he was himself a biodread of the highest degree, his mind transferred to a perfect metalloid body, but he was the only biodread in existence. The New Order was his dream, and he would not see it founder just because his two biodreads were destroyed.

Dread had been calculating the odds of restarting Project New Order. He required a few basic items first – an uninterruptable power supply, the raw materials to build new biodreads, and active minds – just as before. At the moment, those items were unattainable. The power facilities were destroyed and the raw materials were difficult to find in large quantities.

Most importantly, he needed extra minds to transfer into new biodread forms. So many were lost months earlier when Power sabotaged the energy stream from the power plants that Dread used to build Blastarr. Not only had he lost soldiers, he'd lost many of the minds that Overmind had stored. It was a useless waste of resources that Dread could ill-afford to lose. A single biodread required many minds in order to function -- strong minds, those he had trained himself. That was why he had created the Dread Youth. They were to be the loyal army he needed to rule through flesh and metal. They were the strong minds that would obey _him_ without question, not Overmind.

He had minds, but not enough to use in biodreads without affecting his troop numbers.

Also, he did not have the biodreads.

Yet.

Power had destroyed so much, taken so much. He had foiled so many of Dread's plans, and he was going to pay. Somehow, some way, Dread was going to find the means to hurt Power. Everyone had an Achilles Heel, and Power was no different. The best means of revenge was permanently out of Dread's grasp, taken in a fiery explosion, but another would eventually show itself.

"_Revenge is an emotion, Lord Dread,"_ he heard Overmind's voice over their link.

"Yet revenge is sometimes necessary in order to prove that it is futile to defy the will of the Machine," Dread said. "An example is made. Revenge is not always about vengeance."

There was a momentary pause, then,_ "It is a human desire, yet I find your comment logical. The organics hold Captain Power in high esteem. Should he be made an example of by the full weight of the Machine Empire, some of their resolve should be destroyed."_

Dread didn't want to have this conversation since he wanted to take his _own_ revenge on Power, but he had no choice. He was linked to Overmind. Keeping secrets wasn't easy. "Despite the fact that Power's team was strangely inactive for a time, his resurgence a few months ago has proven that they are still the most prominent Resistance cell. His defeat would hold more weight in the organics' view than any other. Unfortunately, we have no opportunity at the moment to make an example of him, and should the opportunity arise, we have little to use as a means of leverage against him."

The computer processed the data._ "Then we must gain that leverage,"_ Overmind concluded.

If Dread could have laughed, he would have. "There was very little we could have used before his reappearance. Now, I would say any leverage is non-existent. He has no base; therefore he no longer has an emotional attachment to any item once associated with his father. His team knows that any one of them could be killed during any battle, therefore they accept the risks. Power is uniformly predictable in his responses. He will fight for the organics. He will attack us as he has done repeatedly without regard for his own life." Jonathan Power would die to help a stranger. It was an aspect of the man that Dread had no patience with.

"_That has been proven. I have a recording of one such attack involving this organic,"_ Overmind said as a picture appeared on the monitor. It was a video of a youth leader inspecting a jet for pre-flight.

"Power risked his life for a member of our own forces?" Dread asked surprised.

"_Not one of our forces. Do you recognize this organic, Lord Dread?"_

Dread studied the face. She looked familiar, but then again, all the Dread Youth looked alike. Blonde hair, gray eyes… "What is her name?"

"_This is former Youth Leader Jennifer Chase, the traitor who joined Power's team."_

Chase. Dread might not have recognized the face from a distance, but he would never forget that name. Blastarr had failed to destroy her and Elzer Pulaski when his spy known as Freedom One sent them into a trap, then Chase had destroyed the biodread with the destruction of the Power Base. Yet there was one problem. "I do not know when this recording was made, Overmind. However, Youth Leader Chase was killed when Power's base was destroyed along with Blastarr. She could have been used as a tool in a trap for Power, but she is no longer a consideration."

"_On the contrary,"_ Overmind opened another file and displayed the video on the monitor. _"She was digitized by Blastarr in those last moments. The digitizing circuitry was salvaged by biomechs I sent to inspect the blast site. She was reintegrated at a technical laboratory, one that Power infiltrated and destroyed early in the year. At the time, we had no information indicating why he chose to attack such a strategically unimportant facility nor the fact that Chase was being questioned there."_

Chase was alive? This was information vital to the war effort! Dread angrily watched the new recording. The sound had been obscured, the picture somewhat out of focus and degraded, but he could see enough. He could see Chase lying on the floor of her cell, the soldier known as Tank breaking down the door. Then there was Power running in to the room followed closely by Masterson as Scout stood guard at the door. Whatever interrogation techniques had been used on Chase were still affecting her because she was fighting them. Then the picture went dark.

"Why was I not told of this? That she was alive?" Dread demanded to know.

"_We were alerted to this fact two days ago when the recording was retrieved from the ruins of the laboratory. The overunit in charge of the facility failed to inform his superiors of the identity of the prisoners he was interrogating in an effort to gain the information himself and personally present it to us."_

The overunit had uniformly destroyed Dread's best chance to trap Power and destroy him. Before the destruction of the Power Base, there were ways to hurt Power. After, Dread was certain that everything that meant anything to Jon was destroyed. The loss of the base turned Power into as emotionless a shell as any biomech – or so Dread thought. It wasn't until intercepted transmissions were decoded and brought to his attention that Dread understood what caused such a transformation. If Dread had known _before_ what he only learned _after_, Power would be nothing more than a memory. Unfortunately, Dread had to dismiss any idea of using Chase since he thought she was dead. Now, they were about to enter an entirely new phase of the war.

"So Chase is alive. That could be very useful to our plans."

The decoded transmission was the last conversation between Chase and Power before she destroyed the base.

"_I love you, Jon. So much… just think of me sometime…"_

Alive, Chase had Power's heart, and knowing Power as well as he did, Dread knew the affection was returned. That was one weapon Dread could use against him should the opportunity arise. Also, the recording explained why Power had seemingly disappeared for a time and then conveniently showed up again. Power was taking care of the woman. Now that Dread knew she was alive, plans within plans began to form in his mind. The recording of the laboratory proved that Power would risk anything and everything for her, which meant that the idea to use her as leverage against Power was viable.

But why had Overmind not told him this before if he had the recording for two days?

* * *

Pilot flew to the landing site and eased the jumpship down. Sensors and humans alike cast a wary eye to the surroundings. There was nothing moving out there.

"Okay," Jon announced, "Tank and I will go out. The rest of you stay here until we do a sweep."

"Suits?" Tank asked.

"Suits. Everybody." Jon couldn't shake this feeling of unease he had. With a touch of a patch and the exclamation "Power on," the Power Team was ready for whatever was out there.

Jon and Tank disembarked, weapons drawn. "Keep your eyes open. I've got an odd feeling about this."

Tank nodded his head. "You're not the only one, Captain."

The two of them slowly made their way to the coordinates Murphy had sent them, each keeping an eye out for any trouble. The quietness of Sector 9 gave them an eerie feeling on top of the uncomfortable feeling they already had.

Murphy came out from his hiding place as they reached the site. With a wave of his hand, he called out, breaking the quiet, "Captain! Tank! How are you?"

Jon was actually glad to see him in person. It had been a long time since they'd had contact with any active Resistance groups other than over a vid screen. He grabbed Murphy's hand and shook it. "We're doing pretty well, Murphy."

"That's good. You guys have been laying low for a while; we were beginning to wonder if you were dropping out of the fight and heading out to find Eden II," he said, jokingly.

Jon shook his head, grinning. "No, we're still fighting. We had an important mission we had to focus on temporarily that kept us out of a lot of battles for a while."

"Must have been pretty big to pull you away from this fight," Murphy observed. "If you needed help –"

"It was big, but it was personal as well," Jon assured him, "and it was something we had to do ourselves. From the reports we've been getting, it sounds like your team has been doing more than taking up the slack."

"A little. You guys are a hard act to follow, but we just took a page out of your playbook. Actually, that's why I wanted to talk to you. All of you," he added as he saw the rest of the team disembark.

Hawk walked over and took Murphy's hand. "Our playbook, huh? Should we patent a maneuver?"

Murphy just nodded and laughed. "Yeah, it'd be a good idea if the results are this positive every time. Every Resistance group could follow suit."

Jennifer stepped up as well. "We've been reading the reports about your missions. Freedom Two has been announcing your successes as well."

Murphy shook Jennifer's hand in greeting. "Hey, Pilot. I'm glad to see those rumors about your death were greatly exaggerated."

"Well, you know what they say about rumors," she said uncomfortably.

Tank looked around to make certain they were still alone. "What did your team do?" he asked.

"Well," Murphy started to answer, then seemed to fumble over the words, "we, uh… that is to say… we got a new team member."

That sounded simple enough, didn't it?

"A new team member made all the difference?" Jennifer inquired.

Murphy nodded his head. "Yeah. This new team member brought us Intel and techniques and methods we wouldn't have thought to use when fighting the Dreadheads. That's the good news. The bad news, well, look -- we have a situation we need a little help with understanding, and you're the guys who wrote the book on it. The rest of the team thinks I contacted you to catch you up on what's going on with some of the recent missions we've been on, but it's more than that. I just didn't want to say anything to them yet."

"Sounds serious," Hawk noticed.

"Sort of. It's not serious in a bad way. We're doing okay so far. I mean, look at the results we've been getting. I just know we could do better, but to do that, we need a little help with this new team member. Here, let me show you." Murphy made a motion to someone from his team who walked out from a hiding place. "Ford, Elliott and Tempers are back at the base. Reilly's on guard duty, and this is Sanders, the newest member of the team." He indicated a young woman who approached. She removed her helmet, and the team understood now what the situation was.

She was a blond haired, gray-eyed woman with the look of someone who had never smiled.

She was a former Dread Youth soldier.

Jennifer came forward, removing her helmet as she approached the young woman. "Aaron?"

The former Cadet Aaron almost smiled, but it was more a look of relief than anything else. "It is you! I was wondering if I'd meet you again. We had heard a rumor that you'd been killed around the time I ran away from my squad, then we heard that was a lie and then there was that attack on the facility you were reported to be at –"

Jennifer put her hand on Aaron's shoulder. "It's a long, tedious story." Then, in an effort to change the subject, Jennifer asked, "You're the new team member?"

Aaron smiled. "Yes. I escaped. I threw away everything that was _Cadet Aaron _once I left_._ I even chose a new name. Sort of new."

Jennifer seemed amused at the news, but not surprised. "You're going by the name Sanders now?"

"Erin Sanders. I did like the name 'Aaron' even though it was chosen for me by the youth caretakers. I just changed the spelling and used it as a first name."

"It's a good name," Jennifer praised her. "How did you get away?"

"It was during one of the hits on Volcania. Dread had recalled all troops and just before he gave out orders, there was a massive attack by Resistance forces. I was able to sneak out of the fortress in all the confusion and escaped to one of the small towns in Sector 2."

"Sector 2? That's several days travel from Volcania," Jennifer pointed out, "over barren territory with no way to find provisions."

"I know. I considered it my best option because the biomechs would think I went in the other direction since there was ample food and water. I'm not even sure they sent any troopers out to look for me."

Jennifer raised an eyebrow at that statement. "Someone disappearing during an attack wouldn't be searched for if they weren't noticed leaving, but if a body wasn't found –"

"I'd be labeled a deserter and a cursory search would be made for me in the outlying areas," Erin almost quoted the rule. "I just couldn't stay there anymore, not and know that all of it was a lie, that everything that I thought I knew about myself was a lie. I was a human, and that meant thinking and feeling, just like you told me."

"That was a brave thing to do," Tank told her.

"I haven't decided if it was brave or stupid, but I didn't think I had any other choice."

Jennifer gave Jon a quick glance and a very subtle nudge of her head toward Murphy. Then, to Erin, "Well, we want to hear the entire story." She sat down on a very large boulder, Tank next to her and Erin took a seat on a broken concrete block opposite them. "And don't leave out any details. We love hearing about someone getting the best of Dread."

* * *

Overmind monitored report after report, listening to the progress of his squads as they made their way through the towns and sectors. He intercepted one report that was meant for Dread. _"My lord, Squad Seven has detected a communication from a Resistance group to Captain Power requesting a meeting in Sector Nine."_

Power?

Sector Nine?

Was this what organics called opportunity knocking?

Overmind isolated the transmission and asked, "What is your designation, trooper?"

"_Overunit Peters, my lord Overmind."_

"How many squads are in that area, Overunit Peters?"

"_Six total. My three squads are very close, Overunit Wilson's troops are several hours away by foot."_

"Take your squads to the coordinates. Observe. Do not engage. I wish to know the identities of all who are present."

"_Yes, my lord."_

Overmind was a massive computer with unheard of processing capabilities, but he knew one thing that defied the logic of his circuits and was beyond the understanding of his programming – he couldn't comprehend organics but Dread understood them and how to deal with them. Until the organics were defeated, he needed Dread, he needed his insight. The idea that getting revenge on Power could effectively hinder some Resistance groups was logical even if it was emotional. From what Overmind had observed of organics, strong emotional ties were a factor in an organic's behavioral processes. Strong emotions and attachments could alter an organic's predictability.

Overmind needed to study Captain Power further, and should the opportunity to remove an emotional attachment presented itself, it should be taken at all costs.

Overmind also needed to keep an eye on Dread. His obsession with stopping Power could pose a problem to the overall plan of the New Order.

* * *

As Jennifer got the information they'd need from Erin, Murphy took Jon, Hawk and Scout aside. "I didn't know she'd changed her name," Murphy admitted. Then, "Would you believe that's the most she's said at one time since we found her? I was hoping that meeting up with Pilot again might help her. She's not having an easy time of it."

Hawk whistled. "And the rest of you don't know quite how to handle a former Dread Youth, right?"

"Right. I mean, it's one thing to have to fight them and know they're brainwashed by Dread and actually think they want to be robots, but –"

"But it's not the same once you know one personally?" Scout asked. "We know. We dealt with the same thing when we found Jennifer. Everything we'd been told wasn't true, and that went for all of us."

"And that's why we need the help. Think you guys can spare a few hours and a few pointers?"

* * *

"I think it took me five days to get to the first town. I travelled by night mostly and hid as best as I could during the day. I was so scared they'd catch me," Erin continued.

Jennifer shuddered at the memory. "I remember that feeling. I kept looking over my shoulder, feeling like a hundred eyes were watching me all the time even when I was hiding in the wilderness. I stayed away from every settlement I went near those first days. I was terrified about what the inhabitants would do if they caught me."

"It was the same way with me," Erin agreed. "When I finally worked up the courage to go to a town, they hated me on sight. I didn't understand why. I hadn't done anything to them. I'd never been there or –"

"You were Dread Youth," Jennifer interrupted quietly. "That's a group that has caused more pain and suffering than the biomech troopers have. People see the soldiers, and that's all they see. They don't see the person there -- basically because there _was_ no person there, just a brainwashed soldier."

"I figured that out by the time I got to the second town. I had taken some clothes I found … I know, I stole them, but I couldn't wear the uniform anymore. They didn't chase me out, but they weren't friendly either. They shared their food with me in exchange for some repair work to a few sensors they had, but I wasn't welcome." Erin shrugged. "It's like I didn't have to wear the uniform for them to know I used to be a Dread Youth."

"You didn't," Jennifer told her. "We all fit the same description. Our looks are as much a uniform as the clothes are."

Tank listened as they talked, obviously remembering events that had happened to the team. Finally, he said, "We had similar experiences years ago when villagers learned who Jennifer was."

"You went through that too?" Erin asked her.

Jennifer almost smiled. "Sometimes. Some people never gave me a second glance. Some knew exactly where I came from the moment they saw me. I had to prove that I wasn't working for Dread more than once. I still do on occasion."

Erin sighed. "It's so hard! I had no idea when I left what I was getting into," she told them.

"You couldn't," Jennifer glanced at Jon who was watching them as he was talking to Murphy. She had no doubt he was getting the other side of this story. "We're not taught the truth in the Dread Youth. We had no way of knowing what it was like out here. People look at us, and they see us in a way we couldn't have anticipated because we didn't know what Dread had done to the world and what we had done to help him."

"I know that now. Everyone treated me like I was the enemy, then I met Murphy and the others. They behaved differently."

Now they were getting to the heart of the story. "How'd you meet them?"

"I kept wandering from place to place since I wasn't really welcome anywhere. I got to a trading post out in Sector 4. That's where I met Reilly. He was disguised as a trader and had some parts that needed repair work. He was going to the next town, and I asked him if I could barter repair work for transportation. He says now that I looked like a half-starved scarecrow, but I still don't know what that means. The others laugh at it, so I guess it's a joke. I don't know. He met up with the rest of the team, and we talked. They offered me a job to repair some of their machinery and they'd feed me. I eventually ended up joining them, but… everything is so different. I had no idea it would be like this!"

Jennifer nodded. "I know. I've been where you are now. There's a lot to learn and unlearn."

* * *

The biomech troopers moved into position, just within observation range.

Overunit Peters looked through his binoculars, then contacted Volcania. "My lord, transmitting observations now."

Deep in Volcania, Dread watched in confusion as the picture on the monitor flickered into focus. There was the jumpship, Power, his men, the one called Murphy who had been giving them so much trouble recently… and there, sitting with another of Power's team and another young woman was former Youth Leader Jennifer Chase.

"Overmind, did you instruct Overunit Peters and his squads to go to Sector 9?"

"_I did."_

"Why was I not informed?"

"_It was a reconnaissance mission. I was not aware that Captain Power was in the area."_

Dread felt like Overmind wasn't being completely truthful with him, but could a computer, even one as advanced as Overmind, willfully and willingly lie? Then again, Overmind did routinely send squads out on reconnaissance missions. If Overmind was looking for something in particular, Dread had no idea what it was.

Still, opportunity was knocking.

Dread took command of the situation. "Good work, Overunit Peters." Then, to the internal computer, "Who is the other woman speaking with Chase?"

The computer checked the databanks and showed the answer on the screen.

Cadet Aaron, assigned as a guard at Medlab One, discovered missing and declared dead after a Resistance attack on Volcania.

Two traitors to the Machine.

Opportunity was definitely knocking.

"Overunit Peters, capture both women if possible, but the woman from Power's group must be taken alive at all costs, even at the expense of the biomechs."

"_Yes, my lord."_

Yes, Youth Leader Chase would be excellent bait in a trap for Power – if Power survived the attack.

Chase was one of the Dread Youth's greatest achievements as well as one of its greatest failures. She was one of the first children to be taken for the Dread Youth, the youngest person to achieve the rank of youth leader and would have been the youngest overunit. Her instructors and superior officers had always graded her with high marks. Her loyalty was beyond question or reproach. Yet within days of Dread receiving a request for a commendation for her and a hastened promotion to that of Overunit, Chase simply disappeared on a mission and was classified as killed in action.

Dread reached out with his mechanical hand and touched the monitor, his 'fingers' brushing Jennifer's face. She would be considered fair by human standards, but Dread saw nothing extraordinary about her. She was just another Dread Youth, no different from the legions of troops housed in Volcania and scattered all over the planet. Yet there was something about her that gained and held Power's attention. Even when Power was a young man, he placed a high value in more intrinsic qualities such as intelligence, empathy and humor. Beauty in and of itself was not as attractive a quality as others. What was it about this one woman, this former youth leader, that defied Dread's comprehension?

Overmind's voice sounded over their link. _"Lord Dread, I sense that you are experiencing emotions. I did not think it possible any longer."_

"No, Overmind, not emotions. Merely the satisfaction of instructing an overunit with a plan that has a certain probability of success and the curiosity of why a former youth leader would become important to Power."

There was a pause, then,_ "I wish to understand how and why the organic Power responds to this female." _

Dread had absolutely no idea how to explain _that_ concept to Overmind. Still, he couldn't not say anything. "There is a need for organics to emotionally connect to others. There is a belief that no one is meant to be alone during life, so organics seek out companions. Whether they are associates, friends or become family, this need fuels a physical drive to search for individuals to fulfill it." Did that make sense or was Overmind going to try to understand the biological concepts as well?

"_Then she provides such a fulfillment of this need within Power. She holds an importance whose definition I have not downloaded into my databanks. Is there a particular significance that she represents, one that would surpass other organics filling the same need?"_

Dread knew the question was without emotion, that it was a request for a simple explanation to the most complex condition of the human equation. Overmind had no idea of the concepts existing in humans. "She represents extraordinary value for us, Overmind. Had I been aware that she was still alive, we could have acted sooner."

"_In what manner, Lord Dread?"_

"From what you have shown me today and what I have learned over the years, the female's value is immeasurable and irreplaceable from Power's perspective."

Dread could almost sense Overmind's processors whirring in the background as he integrated the information in his vast databanks.

"_What value does former Youth Leader Chase hold in Captain Power's perspective?"_

Dread reached over to an external reader, one that also played audio files. He played the last conversation Blastarr recorded. Voices resounded through the static, some of the words garbled but the meaning was clear enough. "This is the last transmission recorded and transmitted by Blastarr."

_I love you, Jon. So much.  
Just think of me sometime!_

Again, Dread could hear the processors whirring. "She is more than a mere team member. She holds Power's heart, figuratively speaking, Overmind," he told the computer.

"_In what manner is this figurative?"_

"In the manner of complex human emotions. He loves her. That was why he infiltrated the laboratory in which she was being held, and he must have had nothing more substantial than the rumor that she was alive since we ourselves were unaware of the traitor's presence at the laboratory." Dread couldn't explain how strong emotions could motivate a person to do extraordinary things, and he wasn't going to try. This was one of those times that Overmind was going to have to believe him and know that a former human would have more insight into another human's mind than a computer could.

"_Yet the recording was from Youth Leader Chase, not Captain Power. Would that indicate only her emotions?"_

"Indeed, it would seem so to the logical mind. However, previously observed and subsequent behaviors exhibited by Power indicate that he returns the youth leader's affections. Humans are not known for always verbally expressing their emotional state. It must be interpreted through their actions. There is enough evidence to suggest that Chase is more than a team member whose continued welfare is the responsibility of her superior officer. There is an emotional attachment between the two."

Dread brought the transmission of Chase at Sector 9 up on the monitor again.

Again, more whirring. _"Yet you seem somewhat intrigued by this female. Why is that, Lord Dread?"_

"Intrigued is an appropriate word, Overmind," Dread explained. "Power has remained uniformly unattached to any female for any length of time during his adult life, yet this woman motivates him to expend time, resources and risk the lives of his remaining team members to attempt a rescue on a supposed rumor of her location. I see nothing unexpected when I look at her, nothing out of the ordinary, yet this woman must have a quality not generally seen in others to gain such attention from Power. He is not one to focus his emotions on a single individual in such a profound way."

"_I do not understand the concept of attachment. Why is Power's attachment to this female stronger than to anyone else?"_

No, Overmind couldn't possibly understand the basic need to be with other humans, to grow old with someone. "It is a multileveled question without an easy answer," Dread told him. "Organics form many emotional attachments over the course of their lives. People will arrive and leave, but a few will hold the rare distinction of staying. One goal is to find another to live with throughout life, a partner to be there as age progresses, one to establish a family with." Dread hoped Overmind didn't ask about the function of _family_. They'd be there all day trying to explain that concept. "I believe that Power has chosen this particular female for that role."

Again, there was another pause._ "Do you believe this female to be the weak link for the Power Team?"_

"On the contrary, Overmind, I believe former Youth Leader Chase to be the most galvanizing member of the team. She was raised in Volcania by the Machine, has been touched by the Machine yet she resists the will of the Machine. Such stubborn determination would be powerful resource to a Resistance cell like Power's."

More whirring. _"Then upon her capture, perhaps we must re-educate her to the ways of the Machine. If a former Dread Youth is such a powerful resource to a Resistance cell, then a former Resistance fighter would be a powerful resource for our purposes."_

"Indeed," Dread agreed. "Although three squads are present to capture Power and his team, these particular organics are resourceful. It is possible that they could escape. Should they do so, then we must lure him into a trap, and former Youth Leader Chase is the one bait that Power will take. Past failures dictate that we must have contingency plans when dealing with Power."

Overmind seemed to consider this information. _"Contingency plans are advisable, Lord Dread. Power has proven himself to be quite capable in battle."_ Then, _"Do you believe that recapturing Chase is the most advantageous method to stopping Power?"_

"I believe it to be one method, Overmind, perhaps the most influential. There may be others we will have to utilize before this war is over."

Dread sat back to watch the monitors and hopefully watch Power's defeat.

* * *

Jon listened. He wasn't hearing Murphy describe anything they hadn't already experienced.

Murphy kept explaining. "She doesn't understand jokes. She doesn't understand euphemisms or sarcasm. She had never heard of music. I thought she was going to jump out of her skin when Reilly played some 1960's rock and roll over the speakers. It's hard for her to engage in conversations – it's like she doesn't know how to connect with another human being."

"She doesn't," Hawk confirmed. "At least, not yet. That's how the Dread Youth are raised. No emotions, no caring, nothing frivolous like small talk. They're supposed to do their duty to the Machine until the day when they can place their immortal minds into perfect metalloid bodies."

Murphy looked at Hawk. "Where'd you hear that?"

"It's part of the litanies. Erin hasn't taught them to you yet?"

Murphy shook his head. "What are litanies?"

"Litanies of the Anti-Life. The slogans they use to brainwash the Dread Youth with," Jon answered. "That's all they hear from the time they're children."

Scout joined in. "They become part of the foundation of their personality and self-perception. They're imperfect because they're organics, but one day they'll be biodreads, just as the Machine promised. Erin's never mentioned them?"

Again, Murphy shook his head. "No. She doesn't want to ever talk about the Dread Youth. She's angry about it."

"That's understandable. They lied to her all her life," Jon told him. "Now she knows that they lied and some of what they stole from her. Parents, siblings, a home, her childhood, not to mention an entire world, everything we're fighting for – she's angry and she doesn't have anywhere to direct that anger."

Murphy looked at the Power team gratefully. "I take it you've been through all this too."

"The very same thing," Hawk told him. "Jennifer didn't talk about the Dread Youth for a long time. She'd answer a direct question, but she wouldn't volunteer any information. Some things happened that she'll probably never tell us about because she doesn't want to think about them. Not understanding what we consider basic concepts was hard for her. There was a lot of anger in her then. We didn't know if she'd learn to get past it all, but she did."

Murphy honestly hadn't considered any of that. "Must have been tough on all of you."

Jon nodded his head. "Erin is going to have to get through the anger too, but you have to remember that you're dealing with someone who has never been allowed to have emotions, much less express them. Erin has no idea what she's supposed to do or how she's supposed to act or even how she's supposed to feel. Sometimes, Jennifer would go down to the gym and hit a weight training bag for a long time just to work off some frustration, go for days without sleep working on anything that needed repairing, anything she could do to help relieve these new emotions she was feeling. It's all new for Erin, but once she deals with the anger, she can learn to channel it in a way that allows her to fight with the good guys."

"Easier said than done," Murphy told them. "What do we do?"

Scout counted off a few basics on his fingers. "Give her time. Try to imagine why she doesn't comprehend what you take for granted. Don't ever act like any question she asks is a stupid question because you are literally dealing with a very well-taught, well-trained person who has no experience with the world outside Volcania. Don't laugh at her. Don't play practical jokes on her. Expose her to things like music and art but without any fanfare. Just let it be playing when she walks in a room or have the artwork up on your monitors. Erin has no idea what most of our world is like because she's never lived out here. She's only existed in Dread's made-up world of machines."

Murphy looked shocked. "Uh, I think we've already messed up on several points there."

"Murphy!" Reilly yelled as he came running around the corner. "We've got movement! All quarters!"


	2. Chapter 2

Overunit Peters reported in to Dread. _"My lord, the organics have been alerted to our presence."_

That news did not surprise Dread. Power's team was remarkably resourceful, as was Murphy's. They would have guards posted.

"It is of no matter, Overunit," Dread answered as he watched the progress of the biomechs through the video link. "They will fight. Your mission is to capture the traitor Chase. Once you have her, order a retreat but not before. Be sure to take her alive."

"_Yes, my lord,"_ the Peters answered.

If only Blastarr or Soaron were still there… but it did not serve any purpose to dwell on what might be accomplished had they been there. No, the biomechs would have to overpower the rebels with sheer numbers instead of greater firepower.

Overmind again questioned him. _"Why would you order a retreat, Lord Dread? Would it not be advisable to destroy Power at that moment?"_

Advisable? Of course. Would Dread be satisfied with such a long-distance victory? No. He wanted a personal one. He wanted to look Power straight in the eye when he destroyed him, but Dread couldn't let Overmind know that. "History has shown us that destroying Power would be what is called a long-shot at best. For the sake of this mission, we must assume that Power would not be captured or killed. He would find a way of avoiding such a conclusion. Therefore, capturing Chase is only the first objective for a long term plan. Once she is captured, the troopers must remove her from the location if any future plan against Power is to have any effect. There will be a battle because the other members of her team will not allow them to do so. By that time, casualties for the Resistance groups should be high."

"_Yet you devise a plan under the consideration that the troopers will not succeed in destroying Power,"_ Overmind suggested.

Yes, Dread knew that. Power was far too good a soldier to make any attack on him easy. "We must always take that into consideration; also, we shall have to remedy that possibility," Dread said as he moved a dial on the console. "Overunit Wilson."

There was a slight pause, then, _"Yes, my lord?"_

"Have you been monitoring the transmissions from Overunit Peters in your sector?"

"_I have, my lord."_

"Take your three squads to the area as a second wave. Capture the traitor Chase alive at all costs if Peters is unable. The others are expendable."

"_Immediately, Lord Dread."_

Revenge was an emotion perhaps, but Dread wanted more than revenge. He wanted to get even with Power for every defeat suffered at his hands, with Chase for what she did to Blastarr. At the same time, he could gain some satisfaction knowing that Power would be mourning the loss of the woman he loved. Dread was looking at a win-win situation for himself.

He turned back to the monitors and watched the biomechs focus on the rebels in Sector 9. They were alerted, true, but perhaps luck was on Dread's side for once.

"_I find your thought processes enlightening,"_ Overmind told him.

* * *

Tank immediately took position guarding the path leading toward their location.

"Reilly?" Murphy yelled back.

"They've surrounded us, coming from every direction. We're right in the middle!"

Jon looked over at his team. "Scout?"

"Three squads, at least," Scout yelled back.

Power pulled his gun. Three squads meant about thirty-six troopers if the squads were intact. "Everybody, back to the ships. Let's get out of here."

The biomech troopers swept around the corners, down the debris hills, firing their weapons, cutting off any escape route... aiming directly at everyone _except_ Jennifer and Erin. That fact alone alerted Jon to the danger.

"Take cover! Return fire!" Jon yelled.

Each soldier ducked behind whatever makeshift barricade they could find and fired on the troopers. One by one, the biomechs fell, but they were still outnumbered.

"Too many!" Hawk uttered unnecessarily.

Tank fired at a large pile of rocks, dislocating the bottom portion and burying six troopers at once.

"Not as many now," he answered back.

The overunit crept out from his cover and started firing on Jennifer and Erin's position but not aiming directly at them. "Surrender in the name of Lord Dread, and you will be spared!" he yelled at them.

Both women aimed at the overunit and fired as a response.

"Do all Dread Youth sound that pretentious?" Erin yelled over, loud enough for the overunit to hear.

"Pretty much. That's why we don't pay them any attention," Jennifer yelled back, hoping that the overunit took it as an insult.

Taking a temporary refuge behind a fallen wall, the overunit spoke into his radio to his troops. "Squad Leader One, advance your squad and capture former Youth Leader Chase and former Cadet Aaron."

"_Affirmative,"_ was the answer.

Twelve biomech troopers fell into formation and marched toward Jennifer and Erin.

Peters barked out more orders. "All other troopers give supporting cover fire."

"We're in trouble," Erin pointed out needlessly as they tried to stop the troopers' advance. They had troopers marching down on them, more behind them cutting off any escape, others flanking them.

They were trapped and now cut off from the rest of their teams.

"Big trouble," Jennifer agreed as the troopers fired on their position but not on them personally. Out in the open was_ not_ where they wanted to be, but inside a building would mean they would be trapped.

Still, a building would place another wall between them and the clickers for as long as the walls were standing.

No choice.

"Quick! Get inside!" Jennifer shoved Erin into the nearest building as the troopers fired at the ground under their feet. The troopers fired at the walls, at the door frame, anything but them. The building shook, and dust fell from the ceiling. Jennifer and Erin took position at the windows, firing at the troopers.

"Don't tell me," Erin mused worriedly, "this was the lesser of two evils? Get caught in here or be a target out there?"

"Got a better idea?" Jennifer asked as she felled three troopers in succession.

"Not a one," Erin agreed. "Why aren't they trying to kill us? They're trying to hit the others."

"One reason? They're trying to capture us alive and kill the rest of our teams," Jennifer yelled back.

"Why?"

Why indeed. "Because we're traitors to the Machine?"

The reasoning sounded weak to both of them.

The troopers concentrated their fire on the building, trying to force them either further inside so they could rush the door or force them to surrender. The shots blasted repeatedly against the outer wall, more dust fell on them, then they heard creaking, groaning, the sound of iron bending and snapping. Jennifer rushed over to Erin's side and physically covered her just as the roof fell in, caving in the floor, taking both Jennifer and Erin with it.

* * *

The dust poured out of the building as it collapsed; the concussion knocked the advancing troopers off their feet.

"Jennifer!" Jon yelled.

Hawk grabbed his arm. "Don't break cover! You'll get cut down. Tank! Shoot us a hole through those troopers!"

Tank rushed the troopers' position, firing every weapon he had as he withstood their point-blank attacks.

"Scout! Grenades!" Jon ordered.

Scout pulled out two grenades, pulled the pins and threw them simultaneously into the largest groups of troopers.

Hawk took to the sky and dropped a couple of grenades on another group of biomechs entrenched above them on the high ground guarding the overunit. That left Jon, Murphy and Reilly to pick off the stragglers.

Within moments, all the troopers were non-functioning.

"Power level, 20%," Tank's power suit announced. "Recharge immediately."

"Tell me about it," Tank muttered as he kicked over the last trooper.

Both teams rushed to the building. Nothing but debris and dust and shattered bricks scattered the ground.

"No biomechs around for several kilometers," Reilly told them as he scanned the surrounding area with his scanner. "Looks like another three squads heading this way. We've got a window of maybe an hour or two."

"Scout?" Jon's voice was worried.

Scout scanned the area beneath their feet. "I've got two heartbeats. They're alive. They're… trapped in an air pocket under all this. Maybe some kind of access level sub-basement? We've got to dig."

Jon pressed a button on his communicator. "Pilot, do you read?" Silence. "Jennifer!"

* * *

Dust, ash, all of it choked the lungs as she tried to breathe. Jennifer heard the diagnostic on her suit say, "Power level, 60%." Okay, 60% power level. That was workable. She was in the dark, having trouble breathing… the building. It had collapsed on them. She pulled a small flashlight from her belt and turned it on.

Things were worse than she thought.

They were in what was essentially a very unstable "cave" with the debris from the building scattered around them. There was room to move, but not enough to stand up and walk. Jennifer dragged herself over the jagged rocks and bits of building. Erin was just beyond her reach, waking up.

"Erin?"

Jennifer heard her cough, saw her open her eyes and look around their darkened accommodations. Jennifer's flashlight helped, but the gloom and their situation was readily apparent.

They were in trouble.

"What happened?" Erin asked as she coughed again.

"The building couldn't take the attack. It collapsed," Jennifer told her.

"Better than being outside when they fired on us," Erin commented. Another cough. "Where are we?"

Jennifer looked at the area, tried to imagine the original dimensions of the space. It didn't have the feel of a tall room. "I think we're in some sort of sub-basement or access room. Maybe an electrical conduit level between two floors of the building."

"Is there any way out?"

Jennifer shined her flashlight around their "cave," toward the _ceiling_, in every direction. "Maybe if we dig," she suggested. She turned around a bit, resituating herself so she could sit down. If her communicator still worked, she would know what was going on up there. She pressed the button and spoke, "Jon? Do you read?"

Static.

"Hawk? Anyone?"

Static.

* * *

"Jon? Do you read?" Jennifer's voice sounded over the speaker.

Jon quickly answered back. "Jennifer? Are you two all right?"

Static.

Again, she called. "Hawk? Anyone?"

"Jennifer?"

No answer.

Scout shook his head. "She must be able to transmit but can't receive."

"They're conscious," Jon said, more to himself than anyone else. "Is there any more movement on the sensors?"

Both Scout and Reilly were checking their equipment. "Nothing new, Captain, but there's no telling how long that'll last."

"Then we dig," Power said.

* * *

All his troopers were destroyed.

Dread stared at the now darkened monitor. The transmission had ceased when the biomech squad leader was destroyed. The last thing Dread saw was a simultaneous attack on the building in which the traitors had taken refuge. Then Chase had fired point blank on the squad leader, and that was then end of the transmission.

"Overunit Peters. Answer."

There was no answer. Dread hadn't expected one.

Dread spoke again. "Overunit Wilson."

"_Yes, my lord."_

"What is your position?"

There was a brief pause. _"We are less than two hours away from the site."_

Two hours. That was too long. "Overunit Peters has failed in obtaining his objective. You must hasten to the location."

"_We'll march double time, my lord, but even so, we are hindered by the terrain."_

Sector 9 was more of a ragged obstacle course than just a destroyed city. Navigating the area would not be an easy task for mere biomechs. Dread needed Soaron for this task.

"Time is of the essence, Overunit Wilson."

"_Understood, my lord."_

Dread had no way of knowing what was happening at the location. Since his troopers had been destroyed, then it was likely Power, Murphy and their teams had escaped along with the traitors.

That was unacceptable.

The plan should have worked. However, as he had said before, Power was resourceful. Sending in Wilson was Dread's contingency plan. The loss of even one member of a Resistance cell was damaging to the whole. For Power to lose Chase _twice_, for him to be there helpless while she was taken from him, _that_ would devastate him, perhaps finish him as a Resistance leader for good.

"_Your thoughts are not clear, Lord Dread,"_ Overmind told him.

"Which thoughts, Overmind?"

"_Your reasoning for this strategy against Power."_

Ah. Another insight that only someone who was human once could have that a computer wouldn't understand. "There are many levels to the human psyche. If we cannot kill Power, then it might be possible to destroy him psychologically or make him ineffective. By taking the female in such a way as I have devised should have a negative emotional impact on him. If she is harmed in any way that he is a witness to, that will also negatively affect him. Power can be hurt in ways that cannot be seen physically. That could affect his ability to resist the will of the Machine."

There were times when Dread wished that Overmind had a clearer view of human thinking. It would be easier to explain such things to him.

"_A small victory as opposed to a large victory,"_ Overmind considered the idea. _"It is a contingency plan as well."_

"That it is. We must take any and all chances to do as much harm to the Resistance as possible. These opportunities do not come often."

Dread brought up the file of Chase's interrogations, but he didn't play it. It was not something he wished to view with Overmind _watching_. "Had we known that Chase was a prisoner, we would not now be looking for such opportunities," he whispered to himself.

* * *

Overmind downloaded his observations into his databanks. Dread's attempt at securing the female -- fueled by his need for revenge against Power -- was an emotional response that was unsurprising. However, it was Dread's fascination for the female that Overmind had not expected. Dread had never before displayed such an interest in anyone. There was a curious concentration in Dread's mind that Overmind couldn't fathom or read.

It also meant that such confusing and conflicting emotions were not of the Machine. Overmind would have to deal with Dread at some point in the future when his services were no longer required. Overmind would tolerate nothing in his domain that was not of the Machine.

* * *

No answer. Jennifer wasn't surprised at that when she noticed the crystal on her communicator was shattered. Maybe they were hearing her even if she wasn't hearing them? She left the channel open just in case.

She hurt. She had sore muscles where she didn't even know she had muscles. Luckily, there was nothing broken. Her suit had protected her. "Can you move?" she asked Erin.

The girl wiggled herself free from the debris. "I'll be all right. My head is pounding. My wrist and my arm hurt, so do my ribs, but I don't think anything's broken. What do we do first?"

Jennifer shined the flashlight on a wall at the far end. "If I'm right and we're in a sub-basement, that might be why the floor collapsed under us so easily. The supports weren't strong enough to withstand the building falling in on us." She shone the flashlight on the wall. "See that wall? It's holding up the… ceiling, for lack of a better word. If that's a supporting wall, it might keep what's left up there off us should the ceiling collapse. We'll try to dig our way through right next to it."

Did that sound reasonable? Did it matter? They couldn't sit there and do nothing.

"That's a lot of if's and might's," Erin pointed out.

"I know," Jennifer told her, "but they'll be digging down to find us as soon as they stop the troopers."

* * *

A supporting wall… weakened supports, diminished floor and ceiling… Murphy was impressed at Jennifer's calm description of their situation. "How are we supposed to find that supporting wall?" he asked. "There's nothing but rubble up here."

At that moment, Scout was scanning the debris with a different type of handheld sensor. He pointed to a collapsed outer wall and demolished roof that had fallen directly over what had to be the underground supporting structure. "There's too much weight there on that side of the floor. It'll collapse if all of us are standing there. We can clear out the debris just to the left of it and dig there. That should put us within inches of where Jennifer's talking about."

Murphy didn't think twice about it. "How much time do we have?"

Reilly ran up with shovels and picks, keeping an eye on his own sensors. "About an hour and a half," he said before Scout could answer. "And it's going to take us longer than that to dig through all that.

Tank grabbed one of the picks and began to hack at the stones covering the floor. "We're digging down, they're digging up. We'll meet in the middle," he said without hesitation.

~*~*~*~*~

Erin dragged herself behind Jennifer as they searched for a weaker spot that could give them access through the ceiling. "It won't be easy digging through all that," she said.

Jennifer focused the light on the ground, the beam shining on metal pipes and rebar. She heard the faint :: tap :: tap :: tap :: above. They were digging for them. "No, but at least we have some things to punch a hole in it," she said, picking up one of the metal pipes. "And all we have to do is dig a hole big enough to climb through or loosen up enough of the material so they can break through from above." Jennifer found a fallen bit of concrete and sat down. It gave her just enough room to punch at the ceiling with the pipe.

"So tell me more about what's been going on since you joined up with Murphy's team," she said as she began to chip away at a part of the low ceiling.

Erin picked up another thin pipe and began chipping away at the dirt as well as her ribs and arm would let her. "There's not much to tell," she said. "We've gone on a few missions. Helped evacuate a few towns, rescued prisoners from biomechs, that kind of thing. I've been reading a lot. Murphy gave me access to the library files at the base. A lot of history and literature – have you ever read Shakespeare?"

Jennifer laughed. "A few months ago, I did. I had a lot of time on my hands and decided to read his plays. Tank loves his work. He can quote it. I'm having a little trouble with the style of language, but the stories are incredible."

"I really liked Hamlet and MacBeth," Erin pulled a piece of wood from the ceiling, the dirt falling around her ankles. "Julius Caesar too. I didn't like Romeo and Juliet though. I don't understand why anyone would kill themselves like that."

"Like how?"

Erin had a dusting of dirt fall on her head. She ran her hand through her hair to remove as much as possible. "Two people kill themselves because they couldn't live without the other. That makes absolutely no sense."

Jennifer wasn't going to get into _that_ conversation at that moment. They'd be there all day if she tried explaining it. "Poetry is good," she added as she pulled out a large rock that was in her way. "I love poems that tell a story like The Wreck of the Hesperus or Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight."

Erin thought for a moment. "I've read Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight. I haven't heard of the other. There's so much out there to read. Why would Dread keep all that from us?"

"Control," Jennifer told her. "He didn't want any of us exposed to creative thought because that could lead to independent thought. Free thinking is a threat to him, so he couldn't risk it."

Erin pulled the splinter of a crushed wooden beam from the debris. "But so much of what he kept from us is enjoyable. Once, I walked into a room and Reilly was playing music. I'd never heard anything like that in my life! It was a group they called The Beach Boys. And there's so much of it, so many different kinds."

Jennifer laughed. Was the air getting a bit denser and warmer? "Hawk loves what he calls 'the oldies.' Scout, well, he has what the captain calls the most eclectic interest in music he's ever seen. He plays all kinds. Tank loves classical music. His favorites are Mozart, Bach, Beethoven –"

"I've heard of them!" Erin said excitedly. "At least, I know the names."

"Listen to their music once we get out of here. It's probably unlike anything else you've ever heard."

"Yeah, maybe," Erin turned a bit, her ribs hurting her worse the longer she stayed in one position. "Reilly laughed at me when I didn't know what music was."

Jennifer stopped digging for a moment. "They don't understand. They can't. They don't know what it's like to grow up in the Dread Youth, to be deprived of what they think are very simple things. I'm sure he didn't mean to laugh at you, it was more like he was laughing at the idea of someone not knowing what music was."

* * *

Still listening through the communicator as they worked, Reilly felt about two inches tall. "I really shouldn't have laughed at her."

"You didn't know," Tank explained. "Now you do, and you won't do it again. Keep listening. Pilot will explain things."

Hawk and Scout shoved a large bit of wall off the area. "Jennifer had to explain life as a Dread Youth to us as well," Hawk told him. "We had to learn a lot of it the hard way ourselves. If what we learned can help someone else who escaped the Dread Youth, all the better."

* * *

"Do you think this is going to work?" Erin asked as she pulled another broken piece of beam from the area above her head. The dirt fell in on her again, causing her to cough.

"No idea, but it's better than just sitting here doing nothing," Jennifer told her as she adjusted the angle of the flashlight. No good. The light began to dim a bit. She pulled a lead out of her suit and plugged the flashlight into it. Within moments, the light glowed brightly.

"Power level 40%," the computer announced.

"Power level?" Erin asked.

Jennifer grinned. "Everything runs on power of some sort."

"Pilot –"

"Call me Jennifer," she told her.

"Jennifer. Why do you think the others will try to dig us out? Won't they get away from here as soon as they can?"

Jennifer looked over at her, not believing what she heard. Then again… it made complete sense in a Dread-Youth-ish sort of way. "Listen," she said as she pointed toward the ceiling.

Erin tilted her head to listen. There was a scratching and a tapping above them. "That noise?"

"That's them. They're digging us out." Seeing that Erin didn't quite believe her, Jennifer asked, "Would you leave if Murphy or Reilly were trapped down here?"

Erin shoved a rock away from her to give her more workspace. "If the clickers are up there firing on them, they'd have to escape. Dread sent three squads. He'll send backup. We were already outnumbered."

Jennifer thought about that. How could she explain? "Yeah, that's one way they might have to fight. It's possible they were overwhelmed up there and had to retreat if the opportunity presented itself. They may still have to when that second wave gets here. They'll lead the clickers away from us, fight them, shoot them, and then come back and dig us out."

"They'd come back?" Erin whispered, mostly to herself. "No Dread Youth would ever do something like that."

Jennifer coughed. The air _was_ getting dustier and harder to breathe. "And that's why they're up there, trying to get us out or leading the troopers away from us. None of them were Dread Youth."

Erin actually smiled at that. "They do the exact opposite of everything we were taught."

"That's one way to look at it," Jennifer agreed, "but if you need a sight that they're up there now, all you have to do is keep listening." She directed Erin's attention to the ceiling.

The faint tapping and a scratching kept echoing in their little cave.

In a very surprised voice, Erin repeated, "They're digging."

* * *

"Why would she doubt it?" Murphy asked as he and Jon pushed the metal beam away.

Jon picked up another bit of broken ceiling and tossed onto the growing pile outside the building's ruins. "Dread Youth leave their dead behind. They'll only pick up their wounded if they're visible or able to be rescued easily. If they're trapped, they're left for dead."

Murphy shook his head. "The exact opposite of everything any of us would do."

"And that's all they knew growing up," Jon told him. "No one cared for them. They weren't allowed emotional ties to anyone or anything. They were told that they were inferior and not worthy, that only following the will of the Machine is the way to become like the Machine… it gets worse, believe me."

Murphy picked up another rock and tossed it on another pile of debris. "I didn't know it was that bad," he muttered.

* * *

The air was getting more stale, hotter and dustier. Erin wiped the sweat from her forehead as she paused a moment to catch her breath. "So, tell me about the rumors. I heard you were dead. Even Murphy thought you were and then said that it was a huge mistake because we heard later on you were with your team."

Jennifer got quiet.

"I was dead, sort of. Would have been. Should have been. I know there were times I wished I had been," Jennifer moved another small boulder out of her way. "Dread set a trap. A data disk with a homing signal. I was alone at the base when Blastarr and the biomechs infiltrated. The self-destruct malfunctioned, and I had to set it off manually just as Blastarr was about to shoot me, but he digitized me instead in that last moment before the explosion. I was trapped in the digitizer."

Erin's eyes grew wide. Digitization was considered hell among the Dread Youth. Hardly anyone was ever known to be reintegrated, and even then, it was for very specific purposes. "But Blastarr was destroyed. How are you here?"

Jennifer leaned against a large piece of metal, her breathing more audible than before. "Scout told me that clickers went into the ruins, and they found the digitizer buried in the wreckage. They took it to a lab. It regenerated just enough for them to reintegrate some of the prisoners. I was one of them."

* * *

Jon had to force himself not to think about those months. It had been a dark time in all their lives. For him… from the moment he thought she had died in the explosion, his life meant nothing to him. How could it? His heart was destroyed; dead and buried in the rubble of the Power Base. Yet he kept on going, day by day, because duty and team required that he should. He designed tactics to defeat the biomechs and overunits; he undermined Dread at every turn with an intensity fueled by revenge.

Then they learned from an informant that the biomech troopers salvaged Blastarr's damaged components from the remains. The troopers took what was left of the Biodread to a research facility to regenerate so they could reintegrate the prisoners. The rumor was that Jennifer was one of the survivors and had been identified as one of Power's team. What the Dread soldiers did to prisoners… what the rumors said they did… Jon would have crashed the jumpship into Volcania itself to save her if he needed to. Rescuing her had been his entire focus – even though they had no proof that she was alive, only a rumor that could have been a trap set down by Dread.

They infiltrated the facility and destroyed every biomech they encountered. They searched every room, every lab, every chamber until they found her locked in one of the maximum security cells.

What they discovered was worse than they had imagined. The technicians had used extreme methods to try to break Jennifer but she never talked. She never let them get past her own mental defenses. Torture, beatings, starvation, sleep deprivation, drug induced hallucinations -- she had been hurt so badly that her recovery had taken months.

The team couldn't stop fighting Dread, but they severely cut down on the number of missions they went on. They needed to help Jennifer -- that was their fight for a while. They had to help her get back to herself.

Good thing that woman was stubborn because she was bound and determined to get back to 100% in as short a time as possible. It was through sheer force of will that got her over the ordeal and back in top physical shape. It was a battle for her, and one thing Jennifer Chase didn't do was give up when she had to fight. She didn't try to act as if nothing bad had happened, but she didn't dwell on what had happened. Sometimes, she once told Jon, moving past something truly meant not dealing with it at that moment, letting some time pass so the person was stronger to deal with the bad memories.

She dealt with the moments, worked through the memories, and along the way, she and Jon finally found time to finish their talk.

Yet, as important as their talk had been for their relationship, the talk Jennifer was currently having had a much more profound effect on others who were listening.

* * *

Erin watched as the expression on Jennifer's face changed. There was so much she wasn't telling her. "It was bad, wasn't it?"

"It was worse than bad. You know how we were taught that no one could resist the will of the Machine? That any of the traitors that should be cleansed for their defiance would easily bend to the Machine's will because there had to be something wrong with them since they were fighting us?"

"Vividly," Erin told her. "I try not to think of all that."

"I used to wonder how some of the people who were captured and questioned could defy the interrogators. I didn't realize then that protecting what's out here is more important than one's life."

That was a concept Erin had not put into words, but she understood the sentiment after living in the real world for months. "You had something to protect, didn't you?"

Jennifer nodded as she resumed digging. "Once the overunit in command identified me, he questioned me, but I didn't give him any answers. Then it got worse. He kept on questioning me. I wasn't going to betray my friends or the Resistance. I knew there would be no rescue because the others thought I was dead. I knew I was going to die in that cell, but they weren't going to hear me say one word. I wasn't going to utter one syllable or scream one curse at them. I wasn't going to give them that satisfaction. But I was so angry that I didn't die in that explosion, and I had no way to kill myself in there."

As much as a Dread Youth wanted to transfer into a metalloid body, they also didn't want to die. "You really mean that?" Erin asked her.

"At the time, yes. I wanted the torture to stop." Then, she added, "But as much as I wanted it to stop, that's how much I was determined to not let them beat me. If I was going to die in there, it wouldn't be by my hand and it wouldn't be because they drove me to it. I was going to prove that I was stronger than they were."

* * *

Jon listened, as did the others while they moved more debris away. Jennifer had said very little about being digitized and undergoing the interrogations after she was reintegrated. She had finally told Jon some of it, what little she could manage to remember without becoming physically ill. Over the months, she was able to tell him more, but overall, she didn't want to talk about that time. She tried not to think about it too often.

She didn't have to tell him much because he knew the interrogations had been bad. Unknown to anyone else at the time, he stole the recordings when they rescued her and watched them first in private. He had to know how bad it was for her to know what to do next. Eventually, the others saw the recordings so they knew exactly what they were dealing with. Jon didn't know how she had survived, how she kept quiet. Even under the belief that no rescue was coming, that she'd die alone in that dark cell, she used every ounce of her strength to protect them.

He knew she wished herself dead to stop the torture. He knew she'd fight them to the last of her strength.

The memory of that recording, what they'd done to her… he pushed it from his mind. He had to keep digging and get them out.

* * *

"But Captain Power and the others got you out?" Erin asked.

"They did," Jennifer explained as she began shifting more rocks to give them more room to work. The ceiling was starting to chip away more easily. "I didn't believe it was real at first. I thought I was hallucinating when Tank crashed through that door."

"Why hallucinating?"

Jennifer shook her head. "I knew they weren't coming because they thought I was dead. If they weren't coming, then there was no way it was them breaking in that cell." She glanced over at Erin and saw the utter confusion on her face. "I wasn't doing very well at the time. My thoughts weren't exactly … coherent."

Not doing very well – that was an understatement of monumental proportions.

"Can I ask…" Erin stammered, "I mean, I won't ask if you don't want to tell me, but –"

"They used the Fourth Kentesius Procedure on me for two days to try to get me to talk."

* * *

"Fourth Kentesius?" Murphy asked as he and Hawk shoved the last large piece of broken ceiling away from the area.

"Byron Kentesius was a Dread torture technician who forgot more about pain than you and I will ever know," Hawk told him. "He created different levels of torture for the various subjects. The Fourth Procedure is used for exceptionally difficult prisoners. It destroys the mind after prolonged use of it because of the intense pain it inflicts on the human body."

"She survived that?"

Hawk nodded his head as he took a deep breath. "That girl's strong. She's had to be."

* * *

"Overcoming the Fourth Kentesius isn't something you can do very easily," Erin wheezed. "It's designed to break down the rational mind. You were subjected to it for two days? How did you recover from that?"

The flashlight started to dim slightly, and Jennifer slapped it on the side. The beam increased again. "It took a while," Jennifer almost whispered. "Whatever happened that first week, I didn't ask, and they didn't volunteer any information. I know a lot of it wasn't good. When I came back to my senses, I saw that they all had some new bruises. Even Tank had a black eye so I have a feeling it was a very eventful week for all of us."

"The drugs used in the Fourth Kentesius Procedure would take about a week to purge from your system," Erin said. It was entirely too warm in their cave. The air was much thicker than before.

Jennifer nodded. "I don't really remember it. It's more like flashes and moments. Just a nightmare that I don't want to remember but I can't completely forget. I vaguely remember that when they came for me, I fought them. I thought they were hallucinations or overunits I only _thought_ was them or some kind of -- I don't know -- monsters. This just seemed to go on forever. I wasn't sure anything I saw or heard was real."

Erin shook her head as she tried to take a deep breath. "You must have been scared."

"Scared? Terrified sometimes. I, uh, I had a lot of difficulties. I couldn't stop shaking, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, I had terrible nightmares – but through it all, the guys were there. If it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't have made it through that with my sanity intact. They were there for me no matter how bad it got, every step of the way. Then came the hard part."

Erin looked confused. "The hard part?"

"They were the ones who got me through the recovery _after_ that week."

* * *

Then Murphy understood. "That's where all of you were when you weren't as active. You were helping her."

Scout was standing next to him, checking his sensors, making certain they weren't about to fall in on Jennifer's head. "For a little while, she needed us more than the war did."

Murphy glanced over at Jon who was still digging, still keeping his attention on the conversation in the hole beneath him. What the captain said earlier suddenly made sense. "It was hard on him, wasn't it? For _personal_ reasons?"

"Harder than you can imagine," Scout told him.

* * *

"That was when you started reading Shakespeare?" Erin asked.

Jennifer smiled. "That was when."

Erin was forced to slow her digging. Her ribs were hurting. Also, everything that Jennifer had said was still so unbelievable. "So they were really worried about you? They wanted to help you?"

That might have been a strange question to anyone else, but Jennifer understood the meaning behind it. "It's what friends do for each other. No matter how bad things can get, a real friend will be right there with you the whole way. I know I can trust them with my life. They know they can trust me. It's also why I knew they would be up there digging us out, and I didn't have to hear them or see them doing it."

Erin thought for a moment, as if a new idea had just taken root. "I can't imagine thinking that about someone else."

"Give it time," Jennifer said mid-cough. "It takes a while to learn to trust someone." Then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, she said, "Of course, there is one thing I can't trust them with anymore. It doesn't matter they've known this rule for years, that I've told them time and again not to do it --"

"What?" Erin asked, clearly intrigued.

"Lately, every now and then, they've all had to take turns flying my ship, and they change the height settings on the pilot's seat. And have you taken a good look at them? They're all taller than I am to begin with."

Erin stared at Jennifer for a moment, and then she laughed. She really laughed. "And with every single one of them being a different height and width –"

"Exactly. Jon scoots the whole seat back, Hawk moves the seat up, Scout reclines it back, and Tank, he completely changes everything. Then I have to spend an hour trying to get the seat back to its original position." Jennifer joked. "They don't even try to put the seat back."

"Why do they do that?" Erin asked her.

"Probably to annoy me, but I get even with them in various ways."

Erin just kept smiling. "Do you find it fun to do that?"

Another aspect of the Dread Youth upbringing was rearing its head. You just didn't annoy people. That hinted at emotions. "Sometimes. I think that was one of the first things I learned about people when I escaped. Friends pick at each other just for fun, but it's never mean or cruel."

Erin stopped digging for a moment and grabbed her side. The pain was getting worse. "How do you know when someone's not making fun of you?" she whispered. Erin was quiet for a few moments, and then she asked in a low voice, "When does it go away?"

"What?" Jennifer asked.

"Wondering if you made the right choice, if you fit in with the team. If you're making a difference." Then she looked directly at Jennifer. "Wondering if they're sincere?"

Doubts. Jennifer had been plagued with that at the beginning, but sincerity from other organics -- that was one concept that no Dread Youth would ever entertain. "I don't know – it won't happen overnight. There are no hard and fast rules to any of this. We've been making it up as we go. Maybe you and your team will too. Maybe, one day, something is going to happen, and your team is going to be there for you when you're not expecting it. You won't have any doubts because by then they'll have proven that they're sincere."

Erin almost smiled. "When did it happen for you?"

Jennifer remembered that moment clearly. "About four months after I joined the team. There was a biomech repair facility that needed to be destroyed. It was also an information hub, and taking it down would put Overmind at a disadvantage. We flew in on the skybikes. The others headed off to the facility and I was working on one of the sky bike's thrusters when a squad of biomech troopers came over the ridge shooting at me. I fired back, got pinned down behind some rocks and the troopers were able to advance. I was losing that fight when all of a sudden, Hawk came flying in and the others came rushing in from several sides to flank them, and we managed to stop the biomechs. _But_ they didn't blow up the facility. They lost their window of opportunity."

"They didn't obtain the objective?" Her surprise was expected. The very idea that a soldier would do something like save a life _before_ gaining the ground they sought was completely foreign to the Dread Youth way of thinking.

"They came back for me. Jon said that_ that_ was the objective."

* * *

"That confirms it," Reilly said as they finally removed the last of the roof debris and was faced with the pieces of the collapsed outer wall covering the area above the supporting basement wall. "We're idiots."

"No, just clueless," Scout told him as he scanned the ground. "We all were. They didn't just have to overcome the lies that Dread told them. They had to learn… everything." He slapped the side of the scanner as he tried to enhance the picture. "Captain, I think I've got a better angle to dig through to get down there!"

Jon hurried over, almost slipping on the broken pieces of building. "What?"

"Right here, right where we're standing, is on top of the supporting wall. Jennifer and Erin are just to the left. These new readings indicate that if we try to reach them here, the rest of the floor will collapse in on them. I think we need to go to the right of the wall and try to dig in from the side. The scanner's showing that there's another large cavity about three feet under the dirt, maybe ten feet deep, so all we have to do is dig through three feet of soil and we'll be at the base of the wall. Make a hole, go in that way, that'll keep most of the rest of the wall intact and holding up the ceiling."

"Only way?"

Scout moved the scanner to the side… north… south… east… west… "Clickers aren't here yet, we've got maybe fifteen minutes, but you know Dread could have a few surprises for us. Time wise, I think it's the only choice we've got."

Hawk walked over and glanced at the scanner. "How much air do they have down there?"

Scout looked again. "Time wise, I think we'd better go in from the side fast."

* * *

Darker, danker, the air became thick. It was hard to breathe. The flashlight was still shining but not as brightly. Jennifer knew that time was running out. She took the flashlight and attached it to a power lead on her uniform again and transferred more of the suit's remaining precious power to the flashlight.

"Power level, 20%. Recharge immediately."

"Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen," Jennifer muttered. As long as her suit was still functioning, it gave her added strength to help dig. Erin's strength was waning fast, the air was getting worse – Jon had better hurry. Their time was running out.

Maybe she should keep them both talking. Maybe it could help keep them conscious as the air became more toxic. "So what else have you learned since you joined Murphy's team?"

"A lot of things I still don't know anything about. For instance, they make jokes I don't understand. I think I should, but I really don't."

Jennifer shook her head. She remembered when she learned about jokes and their double meanings years earlier. "No, how could you? That takes time. Jokes have a context that we were never exposed to. You need to know why they're funny. Ya know, they used to try so hard to get me to understand jokes, but I just didn't understand why what they said was funny. Scout never gave up. He told me once that life was more fun if you understood humor. In the type of world we lived in, everyone needed to laugh."

Jennifer coughed, then coughed again. This time, it was a dry, hacking cough. She couldn't get a clear, deep breath. The air was getting far worse.

"We're not going to get out of here, are we?" Erin asked. "We're almost out of air. They won't reach us in time."

Jennifer realized that Erin was beginning to accept that the others were trying to dig them out. Maybe she was making some progress. "Whether they reach us in time or not… they're not going to give up. They won't stop until they get us out of here. Just remember that."

Erin looked up at the ceiling. In the dim light, both could see it move. "I'm not hearing any noise anymore. Do you think they're still up there?"

Jennifer listened. "No," she said, surprised. She pointed toward an area of the wall. A faint :: scratch :: scratch :: tap :: tap :: could be heard. "They're out there… but they've been digging this entire time." It was getting more difficult to talk. "We couldn't hear that they changed the direction they're digging from because we were digging too."

Erin pressed her ear against the wall. "It sounds like the noise is directly on the other side," she pointed out.

"It is. For whatever reason, they've changed tactics," Jennifer surmised.

"Why?"

Jennifer looked up at the ceiling, removed her glove and touched it with her bare hand. The dirt fell far too easily several feet away. "They can't come through this way," she whispered.

"Why?" Erin asked.

"The wall isn't keeping the wreckage up. If they kept digging, it'd bury us. They had to move."

Again, the ceiling above them began to shake. There was a low rumble… then a tremble…

"The roof!" Erin yelled as the ceiling caved in on them


	3. Chapter 3

"Anything?" Jon asked.

Scout tried adjusting the communicator again. "No. No words. Jennifer's communicator is still transmitting, but there's been nothing for the last few minutes. Sensors show that the sub-basement collapsed when the ceiling caved in on them. They've gone through the floor to another basement. They're not talking. Maybe they passed out?"

Jon couldn't take that chance. "Tank? How are you doing?"

Tank looked up from the deep hole on the right side of the supporting wall that separated them from Jennifer and Erin's cave. The cavity reached down deeper than the sensors indicated. "I should be directly in front of them. Sensors are getting information on the weakest spots. I don't want to do anything that might hurt them when I punch through."

* * *

Overunit Wilson rushed his troopers through the city. There was still a chance that the resistance teams were still at the location, but the uneven terrain slowed the biomechs down.

"_Overunit Wilson. Report."_ Lord Dread's voice came over his radio.

"We are less than ten minutes away from the site, my lord," he answered. "The troopers are moving at top speed, but the ruins of Sector 9 are hindering a quicker advance."

"_Understood."_

Too slow. Power could already be gone. Dread watched the monitors as new transmissions from Wilson's troop displayed their progress. Sector 9 was deteriorating quickly, perhaps more so than other former cities.

Then again, Sector 9 could be one of the initial cities to be reborn in the New Order. There would be less debris to build over since its decline was so pronounced. It could give Dread a head start on the rebuilding.

The site of a major city built on the same spot Dread's greatest enemy was felled by Dread troops was a tempting idea.

The significance of such a thought did not go unnoticed.

"_Lord Dread,"_ Overmind's voice echoed in the chamber_. "I sense desire and ambition in you. Those are human traits."_

"Not ambition, Overmind," Dread corrected. "A plan. We must have various plans to rebuild the world in the image of the Machine."

"_Why should various plans be needed?"_

"Logic cannot predict the unpredictable. Humans are entirely unpredictable. As long as there is a Resistance, we cannot be certain of the geography of the land because it will change until they are defeated. Wars, natural disasters, even sabotage will change what we see now. Whatever plans we lay out at this moment may need to be changed due to circumstance. Sector 9 would be an appropriate site for a new Machine city should the situation be resolved in our favor. However, with Captain Power, no plan can be solidified until he is removed permanently."

Overmind considered the words. _"In this case, contingency plans would be advisable in restructuring and rebuilding the world."_

"Indeed. I would find great satisfaction in building a great city on the site where Power was defeated." There were many types of defeat that Dread didn't feel the need to explain to Overmind. Should Wilson's troopers capture Chase, then that would also be a defeat for Power and a possible victory for the Dread forces. If nothing else, it could be a personal victory for Dread over Power. "The site should be symbolized in some way."

"_Is symbolism not a human need?"_

"It is very much a human affectation, but not always a need. It will be necessary to establish hierarchies in our new world just as the titles of officers are necessary in creating a hierarchy within our military forces."

Dread didn't know if Overmind would understand the subtlety. Perhaps he shouldn't have worried.

"_There is a logic to that explanation, yet it is not logical."_

"I find that many discussions display a logic that is not logical."

* * *

The small flashlight flickered, its power slowly waning. That light dimly shone on the small area. Trapped by rocks and rubble, Erin could just make out the wreckage; the shadows and broken beams jutted out from the debris. She remembered a picture she had seen once of a cave with stalactites and stalagmites spearing from the rocks like a set of jagged teeth. The site of the destroyed basement reminded her of that picture.

She thought that she might be looking at her tomb.

She gasped for every breath as the last of the good oxygen gave out. Each breath shook sore muscles. More than just her ribs hurt. She wondered if she had broken bones after that collapse. Erin's vision began to darken as the oxygen grew even less. She tried to move the heavy beam that had fallen on her, but she couldn't lift her arms. She was trapped. It was growing darker; the only sound was coming from the other side of the supporting wall. Pounding, scratching… something was there, trying to break in. Jennifer had been right. They weren't going to leave them. They'd try to get to them no matter what because that was what friends were for.

"Jennifer?" her voice was weak and raspy. She heard no answer. "They're almost here," she whispered.

There was no answer. Erin forced her eyes to look around the cave. Jennifer was lying just a few feet away, unconscious, semi-buried by rocks and wreckage. She'd expended so much energy digging, more than Erin did. She had taken the brunt of the collapse, protecting Erin just as she had before.

"Jennifer?"

No answer. No more sounds on the other side, nothing --

A small explosion blasted a hole in the wall, just enough to loosen the bricks and cave them in directly in the footprint of the wall itself. The next moment, Tank burst through the hole, waving his arms and kicking his feet to widen it as much as possible. Through the pain and the dust, Erin couldn't make sense out of what she saw next. It was muddled and unclear. She thought she saw Tank start to move the rocks that buried Jennifer, then rush over to her and lift the beam that was weighing her down. She wasn't sure what happened next. She thought she saw Captain Power rush over to Jennifer, carefully reaching out, trying to find a pulse at her neck. Then Murphy was there with an oxygen mask for her as Scout placed one over Jennifer's mouth and nose. It was the look in Power's eyes that Erin couldn't forget. He was terrified.

"We've got less than five minutes," Hawk said from the entryway in the wall.

"Erin?" Reilly entered her field of vision and scanned her. "You're wounded. Just a few broken bones, some fractures. You're going to be fine. We've got to get you out of here before more troopers show up, and they're right on our tail. We're going to have to move you to a stretcher. We'll do all the work, okay? Just let us know if we hurt you."

If they hurt her? They were _worried_?

They came for her, just like Jennifer said.

As Murphy and Reilly eased her onto a makeshift stretcher, she heard a sizzle and a hiss, and then she didn't see Jennifer's armor anymore. Her suit finally ran out of power. As her teammates carried her out, Erin took one last look at the Power team. Jennifer's eyes fluttered open. The first person she had to have seen was Power. He was smiling at her. He took hold of her hand, weaved his fingers with hers, and then he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

"You've got to quit doing this," she heard Power say; only he sounded relieved, not angry. "Wouldn't be able to lose you twice."

She saw Jennifer smile back.

Smiles. Kind words. Caring tones. Gentle gestures. Jennifer knew what it was like to not only experience affection and friendship but also to expect it when she was in trouble. Even after everything they'd talked about, Erin still felt like she was missing a large part of herself that Jennifer had found along the way.

* * *

Hawk followed Murphy's jumpship as Reilly flew it low to the ground to stay off Dread's radar. Murphy sat in the co-pilot's seat and instructed Hawk in the easiest approach to the landing zone. Each resistance cell kept its base location a guarded secret, and no one asked where any were hidden. However, teams had easily disposable "safe houses" they could utilize in emergencies.

That day could definitely be classified under an 'emergency' status.

Erin was reclining in one of the bunks inside the jumpship, her head pounding, her clothes saturated with dirt, her muscles sore, wounds bound tight but she was alive and in one piece. Not too long ago, she wouldn't have bet on their survival. Then, hearing all the stories Jennifer had told her, witnessing members of her own team risking their lives to rescue them, she was seeing things in a new light. She was still unsure and confused, but for the first time since she fled Volcania, she felt like she did the right thing, that she could find a place in the real world for herself.

She watched the goings-on of Power's team. From the moment they got on the Power team's jumpship, there were no orders given or necessary. Each knew their job. There was a synergy to the group that Erin had not considered possible with organics. Machines were programmed to work together the moment they were switched on. People had to learn how to do it, and the Power Team worked together with an astonishing efficiency.

What was more, there was a closeness that Erin was now seeing that she had never seen before with any of the people she was acquainted with, even with members of her own team. She'd seen the occasional genuine smile sent in her direction when someone didn't know she was once a Dread Youth, only to see it disappear the moment that person discovered what she had been. She'd heard the occasional genuine 'thank you' from people she'd help relocate or rescue from other Dread Youth. Yet, with the Power Team, the word 'genuine' took on another meaning. _This_ was what Jennifer had been talking about – what the team felt for each other, how the treated each other, how they thought about each other was _real_. Jennifer had no reason to doubt because the others had proven to her that they were sincere.

Erin knew that eavesdropping wasn't polite, but since they were in the same area of the ship, it was impossible to tune out anything happening in the room. She didn't stare, but she watched.

Jennifer was reclining against Power while Scout scanned her for injuries. After those rocks landed on her, she had to be hurting, but she wasn't acting like it. That look of fear in Power's eyes hadn't gone completely, and the way he was holding her showed Erin more than anything how much of a connection there was between the two. Maybe there was more than just a _friendly_ connection. Tank was sitting at a console monitoring any and all transmissions but also keeping his attention on everyone else in the ship. Erin couldn't explain it, but it seemed that Power's team displayed their affection for each other with a joke or a look or a movement. No one actually said anything specific that she could identify as declaratory statement of friendship or worry.

Maybe that was how everyone communicated on the outside. They 'talked' to each other without using the spoken word. The truth was found in their actions. Again, Erin made another revelation. The day that Jennifer had been at the skybikes and was attacked by the biomechs, the rest of her team had abandoned their mission to come to her aid. Their actions needed no words. Earlier, both teams had risked being caught or killed by biomechs to rescue them. Perhaps no words were needed?

The conversation on the other side of the ship broke into her thoughts.

"You were lucky," Scout told Jennifer as he shut down the scanner. "Armor stayed intact so that means you didn't get flattened. Scanner shows pulled muscles, bruised bones and a sprained arm."

"Good. That won't stop me from flying the jumpship –"

"Whoa, right there," Scout put up a hand and stopped her from getting up. "Your arm may be sprained but you've also got a concussion. And if you don't mind, I don't want to take the chance of you passing out while at the controls of the jumpship."

"You don't think the jumpship would fly itself if something happened to me?"

"Given the way you baby this ship, it'd probably wash the windows and mop the floors if you asked it to."

"What? And deprive all of you of those chores? I wouldn't dream of it," Jennifer said, laughing.

Erin watched them joke back and forth, and she understood these jokes. They were lighthearted, not specific. They were small sentences that weren't really personal. They weren't meant to hurt anyone's feelings, and she found them amusing.

She was beginning to understand more of what Dread had kept from them, how dangerous it was to him for any Dread Youth to have any type of connection with other human beings. When someone was connected to someone else, they cared. When someone cared about another person, then how hard could it be to learn to care for others? How could a Dread Youth function if they cared about the well-being of anyone or anything that stood in Dread's way?

The dry cough kept bothering her. She felt like she had inhaled a couple of pounds of dirt. Hawk was suddenly there, kneeling next to her and handing her a canteen of water. "How ya doing, kid?"

Erin sipped at the water, but it didn't seem to help get rid of the scratchy throat she had. "I'm fine," she told him, her voice not quite strong with conviction. "At least I will be."

Hawk shook his head. "No, I mean how are you doing," he pointed to her head, "in here."

She took another sip of water. "I don't think I'm as confused as I was."

"About what?"

"Before, I kept wondering if I made the right choice, and if I did make the right choice, how do I live up to it? Nothing out here made any sense. I didn't understand how anyone from the Dread Youth could ever survive in the wild. When I met Jennifer at the Medlab, she was so sure of herself. She knew that Dread was wrong. There was no confusion, no reservations. She _knew_."

"She did," Hawk agreed. "Her path to the truth was a little more violent than yours. She learned it the hard way, and when it took hold, she didn't let it go. Your way was a little easier. You had Jennifer to tell you that your life was surrounded by a lie, but you had no proof. You had to find that for yourself, just like she did."

Erin nodded her head. "When we were trapped down there, Jennifer absolutely knew that all of you were digging down to find us. She had no doubts. It was as if she could see you doing it. No Dread Youth would ever think that way, and that's one thing I can make sense of now. Dread Youth were never taught to think. We were taught to blindly obey the will of the Machine."

"And now?"

"Now, I know I did the right thing leaving, that I can make a difference out here because I know the enemy. And like Jennifer, I've found a place with people who think the exact opposite of the Dread Youth. I think that's the biggest eye-opener I've had today."

Hawk sat down on the floor, groaning a little as he did so. Erin was also learning that as an organic aged, the body did begin to fail just as Dread and the Machine taught. Obviously, it wasn't as easy to get up and down as it used to be when one was younger. Dread used a natural process of the human body as an excuse to further his desire to create his new world.

"I understand now _how_ she knew all of you were digging before she heard the sounds, not just _why_," Erin told him.

"There's a how and a why?" Hawk asked, somewhat amused at her description.

"Sort of. In the Dread Youth, someone could be rescued because of their knowledge or value to a mission. Out here, you would do something like that because you're friends. That's the _why_."

"And the _how_?" Hawk asked.

"How she knew is because she trusts you. I think I understand that a little better now."

Hawk glanced over at Jennifer, then back at Erin. "You're right. She knew we wouldn't leave her behind. We're friends. We're family. We've been together long enough to know how each of us will behave in a crisis and that we can count on each other no matter what happens."

Erin considered this, but there was more that she was unsure of, something she wasn't sure she had a right to ask about. Maybe if she skirted around the subject somewhat? "The look on the captain's face when you finally broke through to us – it was fear. He was scared."

"He was scared he was going to lose her again," Hawk explained.

"But we're soldiers. Death is a possible outcome in any battle. Accidents can happen."

"True," Hawk agreed, "but when you love someone, you don't want to lose them, not to possible outcomes or accidents. And when you can, you do everything in your power to see that you don't lose the people you love."

Love? That was part of what Erin had been missing in the equation. It _was_ more than just a simple friendship. She didn't begin to understand it, but she knew that people could be motivated by love more than by fear. She'd read about it. Friends love each other, and the Power Team were friends.

"Friends do things for each other. That's what she said."

Hawk smiled and nodded his head. "That's part of it. It's not the only motivation, but people will do more for a friend than they ever thought they could physically do. And what's more," Hawk pointed out, "Jennifer knows she can depend on us. It took us a long time to earn that, but we did, and none of us take it lightly. It was a rough road for all of us and it took a while for us to get to that point."

So much to learn – so much to unlearn. Erin almost felt overwhelmed yet surprisingly encouraged by everything she'd heard that day. "She makes it look so easy."

Hawk laughed at that. "It wasn't an easy journey for her, believe me. It may not be easy for you, but you've got the gumption to get there. You ran away from Volcania and left it all behind, just like she did, and I'm here to tell you that doing that took more nerve than most people have. Learning about real life, well, you've got the courage to look it right in the eye and claim it for yourself. If you didn't, you would never been able to run away from the Dread Youth."

He made it sound simple, but there was some little something missing in the entire equation, some last wrinkle that she hadn't unraveled. It was in Captain Power's eyes. She understood now that he had been worried about Jennifer since they were friends, but something he said…_Wouldn't be able to lose you twice._

"What did the captain mean when he said that he wouldn't be able to lose Jennifer twice?"

Hawk took a deep breath. When he didn't answer right away, Erin realized that there was something painful associated with that question. Finally, Hawk answered. "When we lost Jennifer, it almost killed Jon. You see, they never had a chance to be together before. Now they do. I don't think he could handle losing her again so soon. That might be why those biomechs weren't trying to shoot the two of you. They wanted to take her alive so Dread could use her against Jon."

_Couldn't handle losing her again?_  
_When you love someone, you don't want to lose them?_

That was the last piece of the puzzle that made up the Power Team. That was what she was missing.

Captain Power loved Jennifer Chase. She didn't understand the emotion, how it was supposed to feel, but she understood what she saw in front of her. All the things she'd read about, all the stories that talked about lovers, _now_ she was able to view those ideas in a new light. Erin told Jennifer that she couldn't understand why Romeo and Juliet would kill themselves because the other was dead. The idea that someone else could mean much more than your own life… that you'd be willing to do anything for that person…

"He loves her," she whispered.

Hawk glanced back at Jon and Jennifer. "Yeah, he does."

Erin almost smiled. "I can't really imagine someone feeling that for another person."

"Give yourself time," Hawk advised her. "You already know what it's like to _like_ someone. You like Murphy and Reilly and the others, right?"

Erin nodded. "Yeah, I like them. I understand what it means to _like_ something."

"Then it's only a hop, skip and a jump from that to other emotions. Give yourself a chance to learn. It'll come. Murphy and the boys, they're pretty good guys, and I don't think they'll be pulling pranks or playing practical jokes or laughing at you anymore. Just like you don't understand a lot of things they take for granted, they're clueless about the Dread Youth."

Hawk gave Erin a pat on the knee, stood up and walked over to his team. As he left, Murphy took his place. "How ya doing?"

"Fine," Erin said. "What does Reilly say all the time? Don't think I'll be running a marathon any time soon, but I'll live."

"Look, I know we've all been clueless jerks, what with the way we've treated you, and I'm sorry about all that. I just didn't realize –"

"That you were being clueless jerks?" she finished for him, smiling.

"Yeah. That," Murphy nodded his head and smiled back. "And there's something else I need to confess. I didn't plan this meeting with Power's group to talk about current missions. I needed to talk to them about how to deal with former Dread Youth. We honestly had no idea how hard it's been for you. We just knew it was hard."

Erin thought about that for a moment. "I can understand that. I guess I needed to talk to a former Dread Youth about how to deal with Resistance fighters and people who lived out here. No one out here really knows what it's like to grow up in Volcania like we did."

Murphy had to agree. "You and Pilot are the only two we know of that have escaped Volcania. Look, we're going to make a lot of mistakes. Maybe I should apologize in advance?"

Erin chuckled at the idea. "Jennifer said even they make it up as they go."

Murphy glanced back at the other team, watching them as they worked. "They've got something special, that's for sure. They had to work at it to get it though."

Something Jennifer said earlier seemed applicable at that moment. "It won't happen overnight," she repeated.

No, it wouldn't happen overnight, but now they had a better understanding of what it was they didn't understand.

* * *

"_They are not here, my lord,"_ Overunit Wilson explained. _"There is evidence of a building being excavated."_

Dread sat on his throne as he watched the report from the biomechs play on the screen. The building that must have collapsed on the traitors had been seemingly hulled out from the ground. Again, Power's team had bested his troopers. Again, his troopers failed to achieve their objective.

There had to be a foolproof way to stop Jonathan Power and his soldiers. No one was infallible. No one was undefeatable. How could such a motley group win battle after battle?

"_Captain Power and the members of his team are truly resourceful,"_ Overmind commented.

Overmind didn't know how resourceful they really were. He couldn't. He was never human. "They are."

"_Your contingency plans were well thought out but poorly executed."_

"On the contrary," Dread defended his overunits, "the execution of my plans was performed quite well given the terrain and the time necessary to traverse such an area. Power and Murphy's teams were able to work faster than our troops were able to travel."

"_Yet they failed to achieve their objective,"_ Overmind pointed out.

"They failed to reach the location in time, that is true," Dread corrected politely. "However, I believe a new objective is revealing itself to us."

"_In what form and manner?"_

"In the form of a greater bond between Chase and Power due to intense human emotions. Former Youth Leader Chase was placed in great peril at the location by being the focus of the biomechs. That would have triggered Power's emotional response, creating a more protective feeling within him. I believe that Chase is a key to stopping Power. We have not been thwarted, merely redirected." Would Overmind understand that?

"_It is logical that Power would become more emotionally connected to Chase. It is logical that to capture Chase would be a method of inhibiting Power. However, as you yourself have said, Power is resourceful. Capturing Chase will not be an easy task."_

"No, indeed. She will not be easily captured or easily broken." He took the recording of the interrogations and placed it in the player. He touched a button and sat back to watch the monitor.

_On the screen was a group of recently reintegrated prisoners, each undergoing various levels of the Kentesius Procedure. Some broke quickly, some took longer, but one didn't break at all. The technician walked over to the subject who was restrained in a chair, placed his hand under her chin and lifted her head. The woman stared blankly ahead, not truly seeing anything._

"_She is withstanding more pain than the others," the technician explained to the overunit._

_The overunit walked over and looked at the prisoner. "Has she spoken at all?"_

"_Not a word. Not even a scream," was the answer._

_The overunit walked behind the prisoners. "No one should be able to withstand interrogation like that. Have we identified her yet?"_

"_We have," a soldier walked in and handed the overunit a reader. "She's former Youth Leader Jennifer Chase. She was declared missing and presumed dead some years ago. She joined the Resistance and was a member of Power's team."_

"_Power?" the overunit seemed rather amused with the information. "Resistance. She will have the information we need to tell Lord Dread."_

"_How, Overunit? She hasn't talked," the technician pointed out._

"_Prepare her for the Fourth Kentesius Procedure. She will break."_

But she didn't. "We must have a contingency plan when we do capture Chase in the event that routine interrogation techniques fail. She stubbornly resisted before. She will do so again."

"_You seem quite certain of this fact, Lord Dread."_

"I am. She will protect Power even with her life."

"_That is not logical,"_ Overmind observed.

"Human emotion never is."

Again, Overmind considered Dread's words. There was much about organics Overmind could not understand. Their behavior was illogical. It was not of the Machine. Yet Dread, at one with the Machine, still understood them.

That meant Overmind would have to keep Dread alive for as long as there were humans on the planet. That idea did not conflict with Overmind's long term plans, but neither did they complement them. He considered Dread's usefulness once again. Many times, illogic was logical when perceived as part of the overall plan. Overmind was incapable of thinking in such terms, but with Dread, it was an integral part of his thought processes. Overmind would have to find other ways to control Dread.

His determination in stopping Power had been a constant part of Dread's personality for years. Overmind accepted that fact because he had to. Yet nothing they had done had permanently damaged Power's ability to act as a Resistance leader – nothing until the destruction of the Power base. Dread's sudden focus on the female organic Chase was not an unexpected development. Now that Dread knew Chase was alive and that she was a tool he could use to hurt Power, all his resources would be focused on getting Chase.

That would mean that Dread would be distracted by his personal vendettas…

And distraction was a form of control as long as Overmind dictated the distraction.

Over their link, he said, "Lord Dread, I have considered the choice of symbolic sites used to rebuild the world in our image. I agree with your assessment that such sites will create a hierarchy that will be needed to establish our world."

Even though the Machine required no hierarchy, the method would control Dread as Overmind planned his own New Order.

* * *

_**A week later…**_

"Captain," Scout focused the receiver on a transmission coming over the vid system, "someone's calling. It's coded for you."

Jon sat down at Mentor's console and flipped the switch on the monitor. Murphy's face filled the screen.

"Murphy," Jon called in greeting. "How are you?"

"_Fine, Captain. Just checking in with some news. Oh, we're headed back into the field."_

Hawk walked behind Jon and asked, "Where have you been?"

"_We thought it might do us some good to take a week off. We had a lot of apologies to make and some catching up with reality of our own to do."_

"How are things going?" Hawk asked.

"_Better. Erin's almost healed up thanks to a regenerator, and we're not acting like complete jerks anymore."_

That was good to hear. "Is there anything we can do for you?" Jon asked.

"_Two things. The first, and I do think we need to figure things out as we go, kind of like you did, but is Pilot there to give a little more advice?"_

Jon smiled. He should have expected that. Murphy's team still had a long way to go. "She's busy working on the jumpship," Jon told him.

"_I'd appreciate it if you thanked her for us. She really helped us out in some ways we didn't even know we needed help in. And if she could give us a call when she's free, I'd appreciate that too. We're still hitting a few snags here and there."_

There was a general rumble of laughter from the team. "What's the other thing?" Hawk inquired, glancing at the rest of the team and seeing them amused at the conversation.

"_It's bad news. Yesterday, one of our contacts got word to us,"_ he told them. _"Dread was targeting Pilot at Sector 9. He wanted to catch her alive to use as bait in a trap for you, Captain."_

Jon sighed, leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's no surprise. We guessed that was what he was doing. Any information as to why he's doing this now?"

"_It looks like Dread didn't know she was alive before. Now he does."_

Jon's heart began to race at the mere thought of Dread targeting Jennifer.

Tank asked quietly, "How did he find out about her?"

"_Nothing concrete, but some biomechs finally searched a facility you attacked. My guess is that there was some evidence left behind that they got hold of."_

Jon thought for a moment. He had stolen the interrogation recordings, but that didn't mean there hadn't been a copy somewhere. Dread could have seen exactly what happened, even Jon and the others rescuing her from the surveillance cameras. "I'll give Jennifer the message," Jon finally said.

"_Wish I had better news for you,"_ Murphy told them, _"but we don't always get good news in our line of work."_

Jon could only nod his head in agreement. "I know that," he said.

"_And now, down to business,"_ Murphy added. _"You guys wouldn't happen to have some old equipment you'd be willing to trade, would you? We've got a lead on a supply line going into Volcania, but we need some good stuff to make our cover as traders look good. Erin says our stuff looks like re-used biodread parts."_

Jon stood and let Hawk sit down to talk to Murphy. Sometimes, Hawk really loved to wrangle a deal so Jon left him to it. Walking toward the landing bay, he couldn't stop thinking about Dread's focus on catching Jennifer. Dread was a machine. There was nothing human left, no shred of humanity left in him. Dread would show no hesitation about killing Jennifer to get to Jon, and that one thought wouldn't stop racing through his mind.

If Dread captured her… if he put her through even worse interrogations…

"_But I was so angry that I didn't die in that explosion, and I had no way to kill myself in there."  
"At the time, yes. I wanted the torture to stop. But as much as I wanted it to stop, that's how much I was determined to not let them beat me. If I was going to die in there, it wouldn't be by my hand and it wouldn't be because they drove me to it. I was going to prove that I was stronger than they were."_

Jon knew of the Fourth Kentesius Procedure, how bad and fatal it was. Jennifer wasn't the first to survive it, she wasn't the first to wish herself dead to get the pain to stop. She was a survivor, but for her to have reached the point where death was preferable… where it was even a consideration…

Dread would _not_ ever get near Jennifer again, not as long as there was a breath in Jon's body. One day, when enough time had passed, Jennifer would be able to talk more about what happened after she was reintegrated, and he'd be there to listen.

He climbed into the jumpship and saw Jennifer's feet sticking out from under the pilot's console. That was an odd place to be working on the thrusters or the atmospheric system. He sat down next to her and pulled at the hem of her breeches to get her attention. "Do I want to know?" he asked, amused.

"Little project," she answered. He could almost hear the giggle in her voice.

"How little?"

"Everyone changes the height adjustment controls every time they fly my ship, so I'm putting in a device that remembers the different adjustments and can automatically adjust itself when that particular person is sitting in my seat."

That sounded like a good idea. Even Jon had suffered the occasional _payback_ when he failed to readjust the seat. Good thing Jennifer had a sense of humor about the whole thing or the rest of them would be suffering through worse retributions than extra kitchen duty or month-long laundry duty.

"Murphy just contacted us."

Jennifer slid out from under the console and looked up at Jon. "He did? How's Erin?"

"Physically, she's healing. She spent some time in a regenerator. I think as a team, they're doing a lot better because of what we told them. He wanted me to thank you," he leaned over and gave her a quick kiss, "but that was from me, not him, and he wondered if you'd contact him when you got some free time. I think he still has some questions."

Jennifer smiled as she scooted back under the console. "I hope everything works out for her. Erin's had a very confused time of it."

Confused. Jon honestly hadn't thought it was as confusing for a former Dread Youth as it was until he overheard Jennifer explain non-Dread Youth behavior. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," her voice echoed out from under the console.

"Was it as hard for you when you left the Dread Youth?"

Jennifer slid out from the console again and sat up. She reached up and touched his face, trying to smooth the worry away from eyes. He took her hand and weaved his fingers with hers. Taking a deep breath, she said, "It was harder in some ways, easier in others. As far as we knew, I was the first Dread Youth soldier to escape or join a Resistance group. None of you really knew anything about how I was raised or what I didn't know about when it came to, well, a lot of things you took for granted. There were times when I felt like a complete idiot."

Jon hadn't expected to hear that. "I'm really sorry we made you feel that way," he apologized.

She shrugged her shoulders. "You didn't do it intentionally, and it was only in those early weeks after we first met. I think Scout was the first one to pick up on the fact that I was absolutely clueless about some things. He started introducing me to things I'd never heard of. We'd be repairing some equipment, and he'd have Mentor play a certain type of music or a certain band's music while we worked. Tank would start explaining the music's history, and Hawk would join in sometimes and tell me stories of concerts he went to with Joanna and his kids. It helped that no one made a big deal out of it."

"And Murphy's team made a big deal out of it," Jon said, thinking that Erin must have felt pretty low a lot of the time.

"A bit," Jennifer agreed. "The one difference is that none of you ever laughed at me. I think you were more sad and surprised than anything. Erin didn't have that."

Jon thought about that for a moment, then said, "She has it now. Murphy and Reilly were practically kicking themselves while they were listening to you two. I still don't think they really know what it was like for her, but I think they've got a better idea."

"I hope so. It's not easy to explain what it feels like when absolutely everything you ever knew turns out to be a lie and you don't know who to believe," she whispered. Then, "So I have a feeling Murphy didn't just contact us to tell us they're doing better?"

She always knew when he wasn't telling her everything. He hadn't figured out how yet. "We were right about the way the biomechs were behaving at Sector 9. Dread is targeting you."

Jennifer lost her slight smile and frowned a bit. "Well, we did think that's what he was doing. We'll just be careful when we go on missions." Jennifer grabbed Jon's hand tighter and stood up. With a smile, she gave him a little shove toward the pilot's seat. "Now, sit down and readjust the seat. Let's see if this works."

Jon sat down and adjusted the seat to his height. Jennifer reached over and pressed a couple of buttons on the console. "Okay. Hop up."

When Jon stood, the seat automatically resumed the original height.

"Yes! It works," Jennifer almost cheered.

Jon had to smile at her. Stubborn, resilient, she wasn't going to let the news that she was a target stop her from living her life any more than she let the horrors of the Fourth Kentesius Procedure destroy her. She could still find joy in something as simple as a self-adjusting pilot's chair. "So if the seat adjuster stops working, does this mean we're back to double kitchen duty or double laundry duty if we fly the ship?" he joked.

"Unless I come up with something much more imaginative if you guys don't put the seat back," she teased him.

The End


End file.
